When he paused, with an evident air of having mastered a difficult situation, she said:
"You are very kind to give me details, although they do not of course alter the present situation. It is a relief to know that you consider your course wrong, but I cannot agree with your way of trying to right it. I have given my word to the lady that she shall not be disturbed to-night and that she shall take the home-bound train in the morning. After she is safe at home with her mother and has had time to rally from the shock that this has evidently been to her, you may be able to make such plans as neither of you will be ashamed to look back upon; but she is in no condition to be consulted to-night; and it may help you to realize, what I feel quite sure of, that she has had her lesson, and that any future plans you may care to make must take her mother into full consideration. You will pardon the suggestion that you must have had many more years than she, in which to learn wisdom; she is but eighteen I believe, while you—"
She paused significantly, but the man whom she judged to be not less than thirty-five at least, was speechless with amazement and dismay. He had staked much and expected to win.
She turned and left him before he could think of any excuse to detain her longer.
[CHAPTER III]
THE remainder of the night was as unique in its way as its earlier hours had been. On Mary Dunlap's return to her room she found the girl was more composed, and able to talk quietly.
"I have had time to think it all out," she said, when Mrs. Dunlap had told what she meant to tell. "Mr. Keller does not understand; his mother died when he was a child and he brought himself up, in a way. He has been a law to himself and to others for so long that he just goes ahead and does what seems best to him. I am sure he meant right. Even that strange part about registering," her face flushed as she spoke, "I can see it was done for my sake. I am so lacking in self-reliance and had been so nervous all day that he felt he could not trust me alone, and took that way of caring for me. But it is no wonder that I am nervous, for I have been doing wrong all day! I did not know it; I thought because I was of age I had a right to decide for myself but I realize that there is a higher law than just a legal one, and I am going home to mother! I am afraid she will feel that she can never trust me out of her sight again, and I do not deserve to be trusted.
"It is all very plain to me now, what I ought to do. I shall write to Mr. Keller and tell him that we must wait, and give my mother time to know him, and to learn what a truly noble man he is. Then we must try by all honorable means to win her consent to our marriage. I will not cannot be married till my mother feels right about it."
"I think that sounds like a very wise decision," said Mary Dunlap with relief in her voice. "That is what mothers were given for, to help in grave decisions. They seem to have a sort of God-given intuition about the great critical things of life. Remember that if you do not succeed in winning her over, such a mother, as a girl like you must have, surely must have wise reasons for objecting—"
"Oh, I'm sure we will succeed," interrupted the girl's voice anxiously. "My mother wants nothing in this world so much as my happiness. But if we cannot, after a reasonable time, convince her that he is worthy of her trust, why then we must just be married, without her consent. I have my own life to live—" she drew herself up proudly with a pitiful assumption of dignity—"I cannot afford to spoil my life and his for the sake of a cruel prejudice."